Cure All Cure: 420 Magazine's Connoisseur Cure Technique

I use boveda packs. The dried bud goes into a C vault along with 62 percent boveda packs. Never had a problem.
 
High. I've used alot of different things to re-hydrate over dried bud. My new favorite and the easiest is a healthy fan leaf from a vegging plant. I simply put it in the jar, and overnight the whole jar becomes easier to handle without the buds breaking into a powder. A piece of lettuce was working good for me as well, but not always available. Both methods do not add any unwanted smells or taste that I noticed. The lettuce will work much faster. Just keep an eye and finger on the buds. Once they feel like you want them to, remove the leaf and seal the jar up as normal. I wouldn't reccommend using this too much because sooner or later, you're gonna screw the pooch and forget about the lettuce in the jar of mold you just spent 4 months growing and 2 days culturing:whoa:
I suggest using those humidity packs for the jars. They come in different levels of humidity and will draw or replace moisture automatically. I have been told that 58%-62%RH in the jar is the goal.I am ordering this weekend from Amazon, and they have enormous amounts of grow items. Check them out Mate.
 
Here are a couple of pics of the final bud, eariler pics of her buds, and one pic taken just before chop.
Pre harvest, just before chop 12/9/13

Vacu
20150506_081028.jpg


Going to miss her.

GR
Im going into the cure threads now that my first grow is day nine hanging...seeing differences in opinion here and in several books on how dry before I manicure and cure? Most say the branch needs to snap...others by touching the buds...wouldnt know what I was doing by touching anyway. I will keep reading, but, liked the bud find.
 
Im going into the cure threads now that my first grow is day nine hanging...seeing differences in opinion here and in several books on how dry before I manicure and cure? Most say the branch needs to snap...others by touching the buds...wouldnt know what I was doing by touching anyway. I will keep reading, but, liked the bud find.

Not sure where you live but I live about 25 miles from the Gulf Coast so my humidity is fairly stable, so I trim first and hang the plant for 4 to 6 days, put them in plastic bags for 24 to 36 hours then hang them again for 24 to 48 hours. They then go into jars with humidity packs. I base it on the feel of the buds, you will learn this.
I think if you wait till the branch snaps that would be too dry. IMHO
 
I never hang my buds, instead I chop colas into golf ball size buds and place in
brown shopping bags just coating the bottom of the bag with buds. Close and
fold over top. Move around or shake a bit and check for mold each day and let in fresh air.
this method is tried and true. Buds can b put in jars to cure in a few days to a week
depending on your rh and temp. Imho
 
I see all sorts of posts on not to freeze your crop.
My experience with freezing buds has been positive in that I vacuum pack my buds in jars after drying and curing then put in the freezer. On removing a jar from the freezer I pop in a 62% humidity pack or two and let it sit for about 5-7 days then open and use as you want. Buds come out just right no crumbling or shattering of buds and the potency is good........
 
great write up! Lots of people have trouble with the drying and curing process. Check out the link in my signature for a tutorial on self-burping jars for the curing process!!!!
Maate!. . depending on weather, hang them up for 1 or two weeks, trim to buds and place in hanging paper bags. Have a few feels whenever you reckon, place in a sealed jar in the dark, burp them whenever ya reckon by the smell & feel. KISS.
 
I did the hang for 9 days with humidifier on low and trimmed dry before jarring. Burp everyday for 57min with boveda 62% pack and digital hygrometer in 1 jar reading 58%.
 
Determining peak ripeness is essential to harvesting. Once you cut your plants down, there's still work to be done before they become that primo victory smoke you've been waiting three months for. Don't blow it at the last minute. Read on to learn the dos and don't of harvesting.

Curing and storing your sacred medicine is as important as getting your crop growing correctly. It's amazing the number of people out there growing cannabis who don't know how to cure their weed. If done correctly, your harvest can last a year or more, and still taste superb.

Having been around cannabis growers for many years now, I have seen some bad mistakes made in this department. The most common problem with harvesting and drying marijuana is that people pick it too early. They become impatient, have bills to pay, get paranoid or run out of smoke. They go to their growroom, look at their plants, and justify picking them early. That is the first no-no in growing: Don't harvest early. My motto is, "When it looks like it's ready, wait a week."

Cannabis is ruined if it's picked too early. Learn to observe your plants very closely, noticing exactly when the calyxes are swollen with crystals to where it will not get any riper. Don't just wait until the white pistils turn red. It's not the red hairs that get you high; it's the trichomes on the calyxes. A 30x microscope with a light will help you to see if the trichomes are almost halfway amber. Some people pick before they turn color at all, but that's when I like to harvest.

Sometimes you have to harvest early for reasons beyond your control. I was growing a beautiful crop here in Amsterdam when I found out my landlord was selling the property. I had to move out and pick it 2 1/2 weeks early. Waiting until the last possible moment, I then organized a good team of friends to help. With three days left before I had to be completely out of the space, I cut the plants down and hung them in the growroom with a charcoal filter.

I let them dry for two days, then sealed them in sealing bags to stop the smell and quickly brought them to my new space. There I took them out of the sealing bags, hung them up in a cool, dry space and let them dry for another 10 days. My friends and I completely dismantled the growroom, making it look like it never existed. I and the crop were history. This particular crop wasn't up to snuff; life is what happens in between plans. Sealing bags and a sealing machine are essential tools of the trade.


CURE ALL - page 2

When you are down to your last two weeks of flowering, you should begin to think of where you are going to dry your smelly harvest. Many a garden has been lost to the stinky smell wafting out in the wrong direction. I suggest a charcoal exhaust filter in the space where the cannabis will dry--better safe than sorry. Depending on the quantity you are working with, you will want to hang several strong lines going from one wall to the opposite wall, in the room with the filter. A good-quality circulating fan is needed to move the air around the room, to gently help the moisture evaporate off the plants. What you want is the moisture evaporating at a slow rate; you do not want to dry it quickly.

I use a sharp gardener's pruning shears to cut the plant. I then take all the large fan leaves off, using my thumbnail (and the thumbnails of my friends). I take no more off the plants. The sacred medicine is then hung upside down, using the strong crooks on the plant. When the herb is hung in this way, the buds form into a nice teardrop shape. The temperature in the room is about 65°-75°F, so it stays dry, but not too dry. I give the room seven days, and check a bud to see if the stem snaps. If I think it's getting close, I start manicuring. If it's not dry enough, I wait.

The next item you need is a large table with a clean, shiny surface. With it, you need a few pairs of sharp scissors and some good lighting. I then take a T-55 silkscreen that's slightly smaller than the table, and attach it with duct tape. The tape stops it from moving. The purpose of the silkscreen is to catch the large resin glands that are heavy and fall off first. If the quantity is large enough, I have a friend sitting on each side of the table, in their own station, so to speak.

With scissors in hand, we start clipping the small branches off the main trunk of the plant, and lay them on the screen. Pleasant music and some fine smoke are essential here, because you need to have a good buzz to sit there for a few hours. My manicuring team and I then start to take all of the extra leaf off the buds. We use our fingers to take the leaf off, and use the scissors to cut the stems. After a while sticky, smelly resin starts to stick to our fingers, and every couple of plants we have to rub it off into a bowl. This hash is priceless; no one ever sells it. The only way to get it is to grow it.

When the buds are cleaned of all leaf, they are placed on screens and allowed to dry a little bit more. All the leaf trim is saved to make water hash. After the cleaned buds have sat out on the screen for a few hours, they are ready to be placed in Mason jars. I leave them closed overnight and then open them again for an hour. This process helps the moisture trapped inside the stem to rehydrate the drier leaves on the outside of the bud. This gives a homogenous dry to the plants. I keep opening the jars and checking them for about a week. It is imperative that your stems snap before you put your herb away for any length of time. If they don't snap and you put it away, your stash will go sour, ruining the perfume of the sacred herb. Marijuana changes with time. If you smoke it as soon as it is dried, you can really taste the chlorophyll. In a month, it tastes better, and in a year, it gets a golden color and a deep, rich smell.

If you treat your harvest in this way, you can have your own connoisseur's stash to smoke all year long. I for one don't like to smoke buds that aren't at least three months old, as time has a gentle way of making the chlorophyll taste fade away. Once you have it just right, it can be placed in a freezer for very long-term storage, and will be good literally years from now.

Soma
Two things struck me in this post. One: Why are you inducing moisture into your bud after you cut it by hanging. Are you following sacred traditions or 'bro science' ? Cut the buds off the branches and start drying. Two: Glass Jars break. And oh, is that fun!!!! Gallon plastic bags don't. Three: Stink? You give yourself away:Indica. That is why you grow it. Couchlock=smell and opiate like intoxication. There are trade-offs. ?
 
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